


So, How Did You Die?

by Dorkangel



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: ...this is happier than the tags make it sound, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Murder House, Angst and Humor, Anya Lehnsherr lived, Azazel Being an Asshole, Emma Frost Being Evil, Everyone is Dead, F/M, Hurt and comfort, I do what I want, I mean EVERYONE - Freeform, Janos Is Mute, M/M, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Science, Mentions of Suicide, Method-Actress Raven headcanon, Multi, Pietro and Wanda being Crazy, Poor Charles, Poor Erik, Poor Everyone who am I kidding, Protective Erik, Raven is Insecure, Sean and Moira have no idea what their relationship status is, Sean is a stoner, Shaw Being Evil, Substance Abuse, The last four characters only appear briefly at the end, Unhealthy Relationships, Well not exactly the same powers but still, except Charles, hints of cherik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charles Xavier moved into the strange old house on the outskirts of town, he didn't expect that it would hold the ghosts of literally everyone who had died there, some good, some bad, some in between...<br/>...And he certainly didn't expect the impact that they (especially a tall, slightly asshole German one) would eventually have on his life, or the life of his student, Pietro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So, How Did You Die?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jess! Hi, Jess :) This is based on American Horror Story, Season 1, Murder House, which I would TOTALLY recommend. On the other hand, you don't have to know anything about it to read this!

So, How Did You Die?

It was Emma, leaning casually on the railings of the house, who saw him first. A young man, in a shirt and cardigan, with floppy brown hair and forget-me-not eyes, all surrounded by mover's vans taking his stuff.  
She grinned, delighted, and went to find Raven.  
The silly girl was in the bathroom again - and, technically, this was Emma's territory, since she was the one who died here - staring at the tiny bullet wound in her forehead.  
Emma materialised in a corporeal form behind her, brushing Raven's hair out of her face. The blonde curls were a bit girlish, a bit simplistic, but still pretty. Emma was, of course, flawless.  
"You've got to stop concentrating on that part of your appearance, honey."  
"It's the reason I'm here." murmured Raven, not paying much attention to the older woman.  
Emma sighed patiently. "At least it was a high quality sniper. She hit you right between the eyes, and when it was all done she came in and closed them. Respectful and all."  
That snagged Raven's interest. "Really? What did she look like?"  
Emma shrugged. "I don't know, dear, you'd have to ask Hank. He's the one who saw it."  
Raven frowned a little, and Emma didn't blame her. Hank was no use to anyone. He'd been here since the late eighties, but had never progressed from the awkwardness and fumbling quiet of his mortal life, and at the sight of the girls of the house's short skirts and low-cut blouses, would blush and wink out of perception.  
Emma folded her arms around Raven's neck, and the teenager scowled.  
"Guess what?" she crooned, ignoring as Raven tried to shrug her off, and smirking as she came closer and closer into her personal place.  
"What?"  
"A new guy's moving in. Still alive, so far."  
Raven's eyes widened, the bullet wound disappeared, and she whirled around to face Emma, but the woman was gone.  
If that Frost bitch had anything to do with it, the new guy would not be staying alive long.  
And besides, the last thing this house needed was more ghosts.

Raven was pretty sure that the most recent ghost was Moira although, with no real perception of time, they couldn't really be sure.  
So find Moira. Not that hard.  
Presumably Sean would know where she was, since the two of them stuck together. Sean was a sweet kid, even if he seemed to blame himself for Moira's death, and his adorable constant inebriation was so much more endearing than Erik's. Erik was just a moody bastard.  
Technically, Sean DID cause Moira's death, but that was a whole other matter.  
See, Sean had died in the most iconic matter possible, and all the other ghosts applauded him for it. He had overdosed, in the 1960s, lying on a beanbag, in a pair of John Lennon round sunglasses. Unfortunately, his mouldy, decomposing body - complete with those same sunglasses - was a rather disturbing sight by the time the year 2011 rolled around, and when Moira (who had been an investigative reporter) accidentally walked in on it, she had had a heart attack. Sean, beyond the drug-filled blur that was his afterlife, felt horrifically guilty about this and followed her around like a forlorn ginger puppy.  
Moira, meanwhile, being the efficient and optimistic person that she was, simply continued as though she wasn't dead and everything was fine, and made intermittent cups of tea that no one had any idea how could possibly exist and no one drank.  
"Hello?" yelled Raven, standing right in the middle of the hall, opposite the door, where Janos and Hank could probably see her, since they liked to lurk where they'd died. "MacTaggert! Cassidy!"  
Sean appeared at the door to the kitchen, eyebrows raised with nerves and curiosity. His bright red hair was neatly parted but wildly curly, he was wearing a stripy turtleneck, and his socks were fluorescent yellow. Apparently no one had ever told him that the sixties were long gone.  
"There you are," she said, smiling, and willed a pretty scarf into existence around her neck just so she could toss it over her shoulder for effect as she hurried over to him. Naturally, Moira was standing at the countertop, humming under her breath. Raven cocked her head to one side and surveyed the neat little woman.  
No wonder she was the only girl here Hank would talk to. Her pencil skirt was nearly at her knees, her socks likewise, and the hem of her sweater didn't come anywhere even in the vicinity of her boobs. She was, in Raven's opinion, practically a nun. Raven herself was a rebellious teenager from 1999, so generally she tried as hard as possible not to cover her butt. Rather successfully too, in her opinion, since Emma and Angel had helped. Not at the same time. Angel and Emma weren't really on talking terms. Never had been.  
It probably had something to do with the fact that Emma had killed her.  
Angel had been a prostitute. Made no bones about it, either, which was kind of cool, especially since her sense of style could be copied by Raven. She was twenty two when she died, and had followed some creep into the mansion just for the sake of a couple of dollars, then gone into the bathroom to get ready. Unfortunately, she choose the bathroom where Emma died, and the voices in her head (well, Emma's voice) had very, very quickly driven her to run the water into the bath and lie down in it, clothes still on, and cross her arms over her chest, and sink under and breathe in and out and drown. She was dressed all in black at the time - rather sluttily, but still pretty - and had a perfect tan and and lovely black hair that fanned behind her prone form like a death wreath. Her makeup began to run pretty quickly, but there was a single moment, maybe a second after she died, in which everything was still and eerie and beautiful.  
At which point her ghost ruined it by leaping out of the bathtub, soaked and spluttering and gasping for air - not that she needed to breathe anymore, but needing to and doing so out of habit are two different matters - and, upon seeing Emma's smirking and white-clothed form, screamed 'You just made me KILL MYSELF, you bitch!' and tackled her to the ground, clawing wildly and cursing in Spanish.  
But, anyway, back to Moira. She was happily engaged with what she was doing, and Raven smiled back at her, somewhat helplessly.  
"There's a new owner." she said carefully, waiting for the others' reactions. "Someone's bought the house."  
"Cool." drawled Sean, grinning lopsidedly, and Moira laughed a little and whacked him on the arm.  
"Sean, we already knew, remember? I saw him directing the moving vans." She looked over her shoulder at Raven, straight auburn hair swishing gently. "That's why I'm making tea! With real teabags, for once. A bit of a welcome."  
Raven's eyebrows shot up. "You do realise he's going to think that's a bit weird, don't you? Mysteriously appearing tea?"  
Moira shrugged, turning back to her studious brewing. "It's ok, dear, he sounded British. And besides, I'm going to leave a note saying it's from an estate agent or something."  
There was a loud, distinctly Germanic snort from behind them, and Sean rocketed out of his chair like a shot as Erik appeared opposite him at the table, hunched over a beer bottle as always.  
No one had ever dared to ask, but it was the general consensus that Erik had drunk himself to death, reinforced by his general Angry Drunk attitude - although that might just be Erik's personality - and the twenty seven vodka bottles (all dated for sometime in the seventies) in what had been his room, upstairs, that Raven had once been bored enough to count.  
"You are idiots, you know." said Erik, frowning at his drink. The thing about spirits is, apparently, that they can't eat or drink, however much they'd like to.  
"The new guy, he's either going to leave or he's going to die. He won't last long."  
"Oh, shut up, Erik." moaned Raven. "Can't we have nice things, just for once? He might bring a wifi router."  
Sean carefully sat down at the table opposite Erik again. He was always wary of the Suicides, and with good cause. They were all dangerous and, for some reason, inordinately happy to bestow their fate on others.  
Emma, for example, drowning Angel in the precise same way that she herself had died. Angel had had more than a few hangups about herself, her career, and her life in general, but she wouldn't have committed suicide. Not in this house, at least. The only reason that Emma was nice to Raven was for a bit of company, Raven thought.  
Poor Hank had been killed by a man that the others knew only as Azazel. He was a genius scientist, Hank, but also a semiprofessional acrobat. He was swinging upside down from a chandelier, thinking about a particularly difficult problem, when Azazel (who had a nasty habit of appearing and disappearing all over the place) had bamfed into existence on the top floor. No one had seen that part, but Sean remembered the sound pretty clearly: a sort of an evil cackle, then a few seconds of sawing, Hank's cry of distress, and finally a hideous crash and the screech of mangled metal and smashing glass and the crack of the breaking bones. Long story short, Azazel had cut the chain for the chandelier with one of the long swords that, thirty years earlier, in the fifties, he had slit his own throat with. It had come thundering down, Hank and all. Luckily, his parents came and removed his body.  
Whether Angel and Erik were technically part of the Suicides was a matter of slight debate among the friendlier spirits, who had very little to spend their time doing other than gossip. Angel hung around with Janos sometimes, a silent, moody, misanthropic and apparently depressed guy who had walked into the house shortly after Hank died, strolled determinedly up the stairs, climbed onto the bannister, and, much to their general confusion, turned around, took a deep breath and threw himself off. He died instantly, which was fortunate for him, and was spending his afterlife either refusing to speak or mute. Still, that didn't mean Angel was one of them.  
And Erik clearly believed himself to be Evil, and was clinically grumpy, and entertained himself snapping at the younger ones and making them jumpy, but no one really believed him. Besides, he had taken a little too much of something a little too serious in much the same way as Sean.  
Sean, by the way, was currently being glared at by Erik, but his head hadn't been bitten off yet.  
"You're going to want to make sure that no one stabs him on his way in." continued Erik, gesturing with the bottle.  
Raven and Moira exchanged legitimately nervous glances, and both of them watched the other run through a mental register of where everyone else was in the mansion.  
1\. God knows where Azazel is. He's round here somewhere.  
2\. Well, we're all in the kitchen.  
3\. Angel's in her room, dancing loudly to some of the records Sean had with him when he ODd.  
"Where's Alex?" asked Moira, brow furrowed, and Erik offered his rare and nerve-racking smile.  
"Setting things on fire in the basement. I think that place used to be a bunker."  
4\. Alex is engaging in rampant pyromania.  
5\. Emma's watching the new guy unpack in the courtyard.  
"Is Emma going to do anything?" continued Moira anxiously.  
Raven hesitated, then shook her head. "She hasn't killed anyone since Angel. Besides, I think she's just checking out his ass."  
6\. Janos is being moody and invisible. He's not about to start murdering people.  
7\. Hank - ditto.  
"Darwin?" offered Sean, at their blank look. Moira smiled a little, and Raven didn't blame her. Darwin - or Armando Muñoz, as was his real name - was the friendliest, kindest ghost you could possibly wish to meet. He was the polar opposite of a poltergeist, which was essentially Shaw, the man who killed him.  
Raven shuddered at the thought of Shaw. He was a dead-eyed, cruel-faced, plastic-smiling monster, whose psychotic tendencies were contained to the East Wing, where the rest of the Suicides hung out. He himself had put a bullet through his own right temple in a flight of fancy and spent the rest of eternity torturing others for it. In a fit of paradoxical luck, however, Shaw liked to kill his victims slowly, and while most of them died, all of them up to Darwin had survived long enough to drag themselves off the property.  
If you died in this house, you'd never leave.  
Poor Darwin, who'd been chasing after some kid he was babysitting, had been curious enough to clamber in through a window... in the East Wing... whereupon Shaw promptly shot him four times in the chest. A fairly quick death, by Shaw's standards, but, well, he was still stuck here.  
He'd taken it oddly well, making friends with Alex - maybe more than friends, but Jesus, they were GHOSTS, and Raven was not touching that with a bargepole - and giving what was basically grief-counselling-for-the-dead to those who needed it. Even Erik got along alright with Darwin, as they both enjoyed a little game of their own creation called 'Will Metaphysical Peanuts Into Existence and Sit at the Border of the East Wing and Throw Them at Shaw Until He Gets Mad and Smashes Things'.  
"Darwin's keeping an eye on Alex."  
8\. Darwin is encouraging the pyromaniac.  
"Shaw's still confined to the East Wing, right?" asked Raven anxiously, beginning to bite her thumbnail. Technically the poltergeist couldn't do anything to her, since she was already dead, but she'd never really gotten past the whole 'screaming and curling up into a ball when he flew at her' thing.  
Erik's eyes narrowed and his fists balled, and the lights began to flicker and the cutlery and glasses began to shake and three of the draws slam in and out. He had that power, it seemed: unconscious or non-purposeful telekinesis. Some of them did. Raven could keep her appearance the way she wanted it, and the wind picked up around Janos when he was mad, but the others kept their powers, if they had any, a secret.  
"He'd better not," growled Erik. "Or so helfen Sie mir, I'm going to tear his face off."  
9\. Erik and Shaw are at each other's throats, but not literally, so they should be good.  
There was a slight noise as the door actually opened, for the first time in years, and the three spirits in the kitchen looked up and disappeared.

*

Charles turned and smiled at the movers, handing them a tip, and absentmindedly watched them cleared off as quickly as they could. This mansion had a reputation for being haunted long before the fire, and they wanted nothing to do with it.  
It had been a nasty business, the fire. Five years ago, Mr and Mrs Summers had moved in, along with their teenage son Alex and another little boy, age nine, called Scott. But no one had lived in the mansion for a long time before that, at least ten years, when that Darkholme girl had been shot in there, and the gas pipes were dodgy and something in the wall of the older son's bedroom had burst into flame. In a matter of minutes, the entire room was nothing more than a charred, mangled mess... Alex included.  
And, as if the death of one boy wasn't enough, Scott had come tearing in to try and rescue him, and the light and the heat and the smoke had damaged his eyes and left him completely blind.  
Unsurprisingly, the Summers family had moved far, far away. Hawaii, if their forwarding address was to be believed.  
Plus all the other stories, some of them considerably darker, dating back nearly a century...  
Maybe it was best not to think about this house's history.  
It was Charles's now, and he Was Not Afraid of Ghosts.

Hank, Sean, Alex and Darwin all sat on the staircase as he came in, watching carefully. Well, Hank, Alex and Darwin were watching carefully; Sean was humming 'We All Live in a Yellow Submarine' and staring at the ceiling. He was, according to Darwin, there solely for moral support. "Yeah," Alex had scoffed. "Because he's fucking useless."  
"Don't call Sean useless." Hank had muttered, annoyed, and Alex raised an eyebrow at him.  
"What're you gonna do about it, Bozo?"  
"Hey," cut Darwin, recognising that now was his time, as unofficial peacekeeper, to intervene. "Come on, Alex, don't call him Bozo."  
"Shut up." grunted Alex in reply, but it was vaguely friendly.  
And now they were surveying the new guy.  
"He's got a lot of scientific equipment." thought Hank out loud. "Maybe he's planning to set up a lab here?"  
"Maybe." agreed Darwin. "He hasn't got a lot of furniture."  
"No family?" added Alex.  
"Aww," sighed Sean. "Maybe he's got no friends."

Charles frowned as he put the last box of books down just by the doors, and his ears picked up a soft noise. In fact, he realised, it had been going on for quite a while. It... It almost sounded like someone was humming 'Yellow Submarine'?  
It paused for a moment, and he managed to zero in on where it had been coming from. There! There was a slight shimmer of air just by the bannister, and it was in a vaguely human shape, like someone was sitting on the stairs.  
Curious, his eyes narrowed and he took a few steps forward. He'd seen spirits before, but never so quickly after moving into a place.

Darwin sat up and took notice at that. "Oh my god! Sean. Sean, man, I think he can see you."  
Sean leaned forward, hands on his knees, and looked the mortal visitor right in the eyes. "Oh. Groovy."  
"No!" squeaked Hank, and Alex agreed.  
"Definatley NOT GROOVY! We're going-"  
The other three flickered hesitantly, but Sean hadn't appeared to take any notice, and, when Charles extended a hand to nearly touch his face, put a reciprocating hand up, as though for high five, a dopey grin lighting up his face.  
"Sean!" they yelled in unison, and grabbed him, and teleported away.

The shout had been loud enough for Charles to hear, and he jumped backwards as the blur in the air formed itself into four young men - one horrifically burnt, red ashes still smouldering in his skin, one bleeding from four holes in his chest, one with bones sticking out of his twisted limbs, the last practically fine, apart from his bloodshot eyes, icily pale skin, and blue lips - and they all suddenly disappeared.  
"Oh my goodness," Charles breathed. "Oh, fuckity fuck. Jesus Christ."  
Moira and Raven, who were peeking out from the kitchen door, bit their lips anxiously. "Perhaps he'll go away?" suggested Moira.  
Raven shook her head as Charles began to laugh delightedly. "No... No I think we're going to have to watch out for him."  
Above the balcony, Azazel and Janos peered down at him, and grinned. "This one is clairvoyant." crooned Azazel, his thick Russian accent making it difficult to understand. At Janos's frown, he translated into English and Spanish. "Psychic. Psicíco. We can mess with him. He sees us how we died, yes?"  
They both allowed their wounds to appear, Janos's spine cracking and the back of his skull collapsing, while crimson lines appeared at Azazel's wrists and throat. They deepened, and blood flooded copiously from the wounds- he had always had a flair for dramatics, Azazel. When he killed himself, he had almost severed his hands and beheaded himself. Not with small blades either, with a pair of huge, jagged swords.  
"This, comrade, is going to be very interesting."

Erik, who was laid out on his bed, just snorted doubtfully at the news. It was Hank that told him, the kid having nothing better to do than go around the house and inform everyone he wasn't terrified of that the new owner could see them. Kind of.  
"Does it look like I give a damn? If the idiot's got any sense, he'll get out while he still can."  
Hank sat down on the end of Erik's bed - ignoring the cloud of dust that rose up and allowing it pass through him - and shrugged. Erik just scowled at him: why the hell did he think Erik was safe to be around? It certainly wasn't a self-perpetrated rumour.  
"I don't know. He seemed kinda excited by it."  
Erik rolled his eyes and kicked at Hank to get him off the bed. "Well, if he's got a death wish that's his own- Scheißdreck." He sat up suddenly, face grave. "The last thing we need is another bloody suicide." He sighed. "I don't suppose I could help scare him off?"  
Hank shrugged. "Don't think so. Your death injuries are..."  
"I can be scary." protested Erik, offended.  
"Yeah," chuckled Hank. "Just smile at them."  
Luckily, he dematerialised before Erik's blow landed.  
"You know," yelled the irate older spirit, into the air. "You only have a backbone when your adversary doesn't possess a vagina!"

"I'm telling you, Tony," laughed Charles into the phone. "I saw... Yes, yes, I know. You don't believe in ghosts. Well, they left me a cup of tea- no, it was not the estate agent! Oh, you're being ridiculous. What do you mean I'M being ridiculous? Look, I'll call you again once I've finished unpacking. Oh, haha. No, Tony, I am not going to attempt to exorcise them. Bye - yes, yes, see you later."  
Raven, Emma, Moira and Angel's heads all turned at once as he moved, apparently blind to their presence.  
"Well," whispered Raven, keeping her voice low so he didn't notice it. "He's not not hot."  
"Never has a man had more reason to wear such tight jeans." agreed Angel.  
"That's not the important part." cut Emma coldly.  
"No," agreed Moira. "We really shouldn't be concentrating on his ass."  
"No."  
"Uh uh."  
"Absolutely not." agreed the others.  
"We should," continued Moira. "Be concentrating on his eyes."  
The older girls nodded and, at Raven's glance of surprise, Moira shrugged. "What? You think I don't check people out?"  
"I just presumed that between you and Sean," replied Raven. "No one ever did any sex."  
Moira pulled a face. "Well, not with Sean."  
They laughed and Charles's head turned towards the sound, and they all went silent.

He saw them, of course. It was all a matter of focusing on the way the light bent and seeing the human figures.  
The first on the left was a stunning blonde woman, hair a dripping wet but still voluptuous halo of hairspray and natural waves, eyes cold and black and full of hatred, while her black makeup left tear-streak marks down face. She looks like she's been crying tears of ink, thought Charles with a shudder. The rest of her outfit was wet too - tight leather trousers and a tight leather jacket, halfway unzipped, all in white - so she must have drowned.  
The girl next to her was all fishnet tights and hoodie and a tiny layered skirt, so presumably she was a mid-nineties girl. Her hair was neatly curled around a soft face, and a single bullet wound formed a neat circle between two sad, amber eyes, the slightest trickle of blood leaking out of it.  
Fortunately, the one beside her didn't appear to have any injuries. She was deathly pale, of course, but seemed almost alive, with shiny, straight auburn hair and kind chocolate eyes. She was wearing a grey dress and a brown jacket and neat little heels, and the air of friendly professionalism she gave out was almost tangible, even if she was... dead.  
The last one seemed a little angry, in all honesty. She was soaked like the first, and (while Emma's get up wasn't exactly modest) seemed to be striving to be arrested for indecent exposure without actually being nude. Her black leather dress came to about an inch down her thighs, and her black leather boots didn't really make up for it. Her hair hung in soggy clumps, green earrings visible through it, and her dark eyeshadow had smudged into panda eyes.  
They, like the others, were kind of terrifying, but kind of beautiful.  
"Hey," said the youngest one, peering curiously at Charles, and he looked away and picked up a newspaper, so she didn't know he was watching. "I just had an idea."  
"Then, pur-lease," exaggerated the darker drowned girl. "Explain to us your wisdom, oh mighty and wise Raven-"  
"Shut up, Angel." laughed the one who had spoken.  
So that was the Darkholme girl - the one who'd been assassinated.  
"Listen, if he can kind of see us, but not properly, maybe we could write stuff on the walls or something, like 'Run while you still can!' and he'd think we meant it."  
"Or start rocking horses or record players on their own." agreed Angel.  
"Alex still has some of his brother's toys." added the chilling drowned woman, and Angel leaned forward to glare at her.  
"Excuse me, queen bitch, did we ask for your input?"  
'Queen bitch' raised an eyebrow. "You're seriously still mad at me?"  
"For freaking MURDERING ME?" screamed Angel, fists clenched.  
"It's been years!"  
"Emma, Angel, calm the fuck down." admonished the teenager sharply. "Jesus, I hate living with you guys sometimes."  
"What do you mean 'living'?" murmured Angel, but they did, thankfully, shut up.  
"Anyway," interrupted Moira brightly. "That's a great idea! We'll go full Insidious on him."  
"Insidious?" echoed the others in confusion, and Moira gasped.  
"None of you lived long enough to see that movie? Bummer! It's really good!"  
"Can you tell us it?" asked Raven pleadingly, and Moira shook her head.  
"Not really. It's kind of visual. Anyway, we're going to need some red paint."  
Charles watched them disappear, one by one, before laughing.

He was going upstairs with a couple of boxes when his phone rang again, and he rolled his eyes and smiled. "Tony," he began, exasperated, after fishing it laboriously from his pocket. "I'm- oh. Sorry, Pietro. I thought you were my cousin."  
He had, unwittingly, come to the border of the East Wing, and sat absentmindedly down on a bookcase that Shaw had upended last time Erik and Darwin irritated him. In the background, Janos and Azazel materialised from the deepest shadows and exchanged a sinister glance.  
"Well, that's good." he was saying to the person on the phone. "At least you'll always have the athletics, right? Yeah. How's your sister?"  
Walking on supernaturally silent feet, Janos and Azazel came rapidly up to Charles, until they were standing at his shoulders. Charles, blissfully ignorant, ran a hand through his slightly long, wavy, brown hair.  
"Listen, the thing is, I'm kind of in the middle of moving house. It's alright, you weren't to know. I'm just not really sure if I could tutor you in here yet. It's falling apart, honestly."  
"That's cool, prof." Janos and Azazel were close enough to hear the person on the other end reply. "I can come over whenever- it's gonna have to be soon, though, 'cos I have no idea what I'm doing in this exam and I really don't want to fail. I mean, again."  
Charles frowned. "Well-"  
And then the ghosts struck. Moving with lightning speed, Azazel whipped forward and drew his swords, carving spiked letters into the wooden panelling. Janos, meanwhile, wrapped strong arms around Charles's shoulders and threw him forcefully away from the East Wing, sending him skidding across the floor with a surprised cry. The phone flew from his fingers and collided with the wall, but somehow survived the encounter.  
Charles, staring in alarm at the words that had appeared from nowhere, finally caught a glimpse of his two deceased assailants. Azazel, blood-soaked and threatening with jet-black, slicked-back hair and demonic goatee, holding two curved and jagged sabres and leaning against his work, and Janos, back twisted at an unnatural angle, the stylish grey suit he had been wearing askew, his fluffy dark hair swept out behind him.  
The words read:  
'STAY OUT OF THE EAST WING'.  
The two spirits grinned maniacally and, without having to consult each other further, rushed towards Charles, wind howling and screeching. Charles yelled, hands flying up to cover his head as he scrambled backwards, and they passed straight through him and into whatever void they existed in when they weren't corporeal.  
For a moment his chest rose and fell in panicked breaths and he stared frantically around with wide, frightened eyes, and then slowly his blood stopped rushing in his ears and hearing and a small sense of normality returned.  
Pietro was still on the other end of the phone.  
"Hey, hello? Charles? Professor, are you there?" His voice became slightly more muffled as he put a hand over the receiver. "Hey, Wanda, I think something's happened to the-"  
Charles, who had dragged himself upright and was hurrying away from the East Wing as fast as he could, interrupted.  
"Sorry, sorry, I'm here."  
"Never mind, Wanda!" yelled Pietro, obnoxiously loudly, and Charles winced. "Hey, what happened? I thought I heard you scream or something."  
"Oh, nothing. I told you the house is falling apart- part of the roof came down."  
"Jesus, Prof! That's- man, that's insane."  
"Yes, well. I think I've worked out which part of the house is safe now, though. Namely, the part that I wasn't just in."  
"Oh, right. Today's Monday, so... Can I come over on Wednesday?"  
Charles sighed wearily, although it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. "Yeah, sure. I'll text you the address."  
"Great! See you, Professor Xavier."  
Pietro hung up, and Charles sank down against the wall, head buried in his hands. Maybe he wouldn't be able to handle these ghosts. Maybe he'd have to move - again - and wouldn't that just be JOY for his students?  
He felt a friendly hand settle on his shoulder, then the attached arm around the back of his neck, and finally the weight of someone sitting next to him. He didn't open his eyes.  
"Hey," said a soft voice. "I'm Darwin."  
"Hi." mumbled Charles back, into his hands.  
"Look, I've got Moira and Sean unpacking your boxes into the living room and shit, but we've only really got one bedroom that's liveable."  
Charles looked up, and could faintly see a silhouette next to him in the dim light, the edges blurring in and put of reality.  
"Thank you." he said softly. 'Darwin' waved a friendlily dismissive hand.  
"Nah," laughed the spectre. "It's what anyone would do. Moving's stressful enough already, right?"  
Charles smiled. "Did you live here yourself?" he asked, genuinely curious.  
Darwin shrugged. "I just wandered in one day and got shot."  
And with that, Charles suddenly remembered the skinny black dude with the bullet wounds, and the haze around Darwin faded into a clear view.  
"Oh! It's you!"  
"Yeah," laughed Darwin, putting his hand out. "Me."  
"Who were those with you, then?" asked Charles animatedly, well-aware that the tempers and countenances of the spirits here would probably decide his staying or going (or living or dying).  
"Well, the ginger hippy was Sean. He's upstairs- not, you know, What Remains, I mean his actual remains are upstairs. They're pretty gross."  
Charles nodded. "I'll try my best to out of any bedrooms that stink, then."  
"There was Alex as well-"  
"Alex Summers?"  
"Yeah, that's the one. Guess you heard about the fire?"  
Charles exhaled slowly. "Yes, of course. That was truly tragic."  
"Don't mention his brother." warned Darwin seriously. "He's gone a bit pyro about it. Like, I think there used to be a bunker or something downstairs, and he's been blowing shit up."  
Eyes wide, Charles blinked. "O-kay. Staying out of the bunker too, then."  
"And the last guy was Hank. He was a total genius, that cat, just... Well, he kinda fell off the chandelier."  
"Fair enough."  
"Yeah. Hey, so, to get to the bedroom you just go back the way you came-"  
Charles paled suddenly. "Y-You don't mean back into the East-"  
"No! That place is-" Darwin, blinking, shook his head rapidly. "No. The angry spirits of this place - the Suicides, we call them, cos that's what they are - live in the East Wing. It's dangerous. Even we don't go in there."  
He paused, waiting for some signal of acknowledgement and, when Charles nodded, continued. "Anyway, the room is up three doors the way you came, and it's the best one in the place. We've put your stuff outside."  
Charles beamed. "Thank y-" he started to say, again, but Darwin had already gone.  
Well, off to find his room.

The room was, incidentally, Erik's, but Darwin hadn't been lying when he said it was by far the most hospitable. Charles, upon arriving outside it, picked up a box of books and hauled it inside...  
Only to put it straight through Erik's boot. The brow of the tall, slightly gaunt, man creased in confusion and he snapped at Charles.  
"Get out. I'm haunting in here."  
"It's the only bedroom with a roof left." explained the newcomer, wiping his dusty hands on his pants and sticking them in his pockets.  
"Fuck off."  
Charles, glancing around, nudged some of the empty vodka bottles with a toe and bent down to read the label.  
"1973?"  
"Jawhol." admitted Erik, lying down on the bed again. "Crappy year."  
"I can guess how you died." added Charles snidely, eyeing Erik's yellowish eyes and complexion.  
"Alcohol poisoning." confirmed the irate German. "My organs bloody gave up, the cowards." Erik sighed. "Still, the vodka was necessary. Usually I prefer beer, but the vodka was very," His voice darkened. "Very necessary."  
"What happened?"  
Charles's tone was soft and well-meaning, and Erik scowled. "None of your business, fuck off."  
Charles pouted. "I can't, really. Awfully sorry about it all, but I really do have to stay here."  
Erik rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter. Not like you're going to survive very long- I'm Erik, by the way. Erik Lehnsherr."  
"Charles Xavier."  
Erik snorted. Charles, very pointedly, ignored him.  
"Look," said the ghostly German, eventually. "If you're going to move in, you'll want to move out the vodka bottles. And for God's sake, don't drink them. They're thirty one years old."  
He vanished.

Emma, who had, seemingly, decided that now was the time to be sneakily irritating again, appeared on the couch next to Alex. The boy's troubled mind had projected a roaring fire into the fireplace across the hall and, while it was as insubstantial and as easily got rid of as steam, it was fun to stare hopelessly into.  
"A devilish little bird tells me that the new guy's a professor," she whispered, sidling sultrily closer and resting her head on Alex's strong, broad shoulder. A flicker of interest and annoyance crossed his impassive face as he glanced towards her, but then he looked back to the flames.  
"He's smart, but hot too." she continued thoughtfully, under her breath, and put a hand on his chest. "Not," She gestured towards the fire that he had created. "Not like that, but... Well, you're a teenage boy. You know what I mean."  
"Piss off." he snarled in his deep baritone, genuinely annoyed now.  
"Oh, come on!" she laughed, pressing even closer to him. This time, when Alex looked towards her, he quickly looked away. That much cleavage was probably terrifying, she thought, with dark amusement.  
"I've seen the way you look at Darwin." hissed Emma, finally going in for the kill. "I've seen more than that, too."  
At that, Alex's eyes widened and he made to get up, but she grabbed his - admittedly, impressive - biceps and pushed him back down with the strange strength that being dead had given her. The fire WHOOSHED out of existence and up the chimney, and the living room was suddenly full of an ashy smell that couldn't possibly be real, and darkness that very, very definatley was. She stood over him, eyes glinting with barely concealed delight at the power she, all of a sudden, held.  
"You and Darwin," she sign-songed breathily, enjoying the way Alex grimaced and struggled fruitlessly beneath her. "Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-"  
Alex yelled wordlessly, fists clenching, and the room filled with light, and more than that, HEAT. Emma cried out and leapt away, feeling a horrid burning in her hands, but didn't dematerialise yet, choosing instead to glare at him with glassy, soul-dead eyes.  
"Alex, darling," she growled through clenched teeth, head angled to one side like a predator's. "You might want to NOT BURN THE HOUSE DOWN."  
"Leave me alone!" he screamed at her. "What's wrong with you, you bitch?!"  
She laughed cruelly, ignoring the way her white, lacy dress and beautiful hair was beginning to singe at the edges, and putting her scorched hands on her hips.  
"Please, I can read your thoughts, you arrogant jackass, and there was no way I was thinking of THAT. Even if you didn't... swing the other way... I am way out of your league."  
He surged up to his feet, facing up to her with barely concealed fury. He was, she realised, maybe an inch or two taller than her.  
"Then why are you doing this?!"  
Emma glanced mock-casually down at her perfectly manicured nails, and then up at him through her long, dark lashes. His nose was about a centimetre from her own.  
"Why," she enunciated slowly, voice filled with sugar, sickeningly Southern sweet. "For fun."  
They both hesitated angrily and then zoomed out of reality together, taking the fire with them.

Charles slept upstairs, and the ghosts - none of whom could even remember how to sleep, or the sensation of it, not even Moira - all went silent and still around the house.  
Erik, somewhat disturbingly, stayed in his room and watched Charles sleep, whistling fiercely in an attempt to wake the intruder up. Fortunately, Charles slept like a log.  
Alex, eyes blazing, spent the night appearing and disappearing in the basement and screaming into pillows.  
Darwin, worried and heartsick, leaned on the door while he did, and Hank, unsure of his place in their little universe, just sat next to him. "He's not mad," he attempted to comfort, once or twice. "He's just... Well, he's not mad at you. Or me, I hope."  
Sean, who had given up unpacking, was lying in a starfish position among empty cardboard boxes, staring without seeing at the ceiling.  
Moira just laughed and adjusted her skirt and lay with him. After an hour or so, their fingers intertwined and their eyes closed, and they just stayed there, wondering absently what the other was to themselves.  
Angel sought out Janos and Azazel, and the three of them sat together in the attic, leaning on each other, with their knees drawn up to their chests. She mumbled quiet songs and petty complaints to the former in Spanish, and while he hummed his silent understanding and agreements, Azazel chuckled and cursed them cheerfully in Russian and knotted their long, dark hair together.  
Emma lay in her bathtub, reflecting uneasily on her life. And her afterlife.  
Shaw was quiet, which was honestly a little scary, because it meant he was planning something.  
And Raven, lonely and a little forgotten, sat in the kitchen and compulsively tapped, first with her fingers, and then with all the cutlery.  
That was where Charles found her the next day, not concentrating hard enough to notice as he opened the door and walked straight through Erik, who chuckled and called him a Dummkopf, past Sean and Moira's prone forms, who sat up when they saw him, and into the large, Victorian-seeming room.  
It was hard, even for a semi-sleepwalking Charles, to miss the fact that all the knives and forks were scattered over the floor, along with the drawers they had been in.  
He stopped dead in the doorway and raised an eyebrow with a soft and questioning 'Oh'.  
"Sorry." called Raven, appearing cross-legged in the midst of it all. "I got bored."  
"Um, ok." replied Charles hesitantly. "You're... Raven, right? I saw you in here yesterday."  
"Yeah." she nodded. "Just kind of got to ask, what do I look like?"  
"Hmm? Oh. I'm not really sure, you're a bit hazy. Also, it's early."  
He wandered past her, picking his way through the miscellaneous silverware to get to the kettle, and fishing a teabag out of his pocket. Why there were teabags in his pocket, I am in no position to say.  
"Would you like a cup?" he asked brightly. "I know you can't drink anything, but I find the heat of the cup can help."  
She smiled gratefully and came to stand next to him.  
"Word in the nether-plane is that you're a professor." she said curiously. He nodded.  
"Yup. I'm a professor of Genetics, in charge of attempting to teach incredibly dense but very lovely young people the difference between a chromosome and a megabyte." He shook his head. "I doubt many of them are going to actually become geneticists, but, well," He shrugged. "It's something to do."  
"That sounds fun." she said mildly. "I was seventeen when I died, but I was going to study drama. I wanted to be an actress- I'm a method actor." She smiled wistfully at Charles. "Always liked becoming other people."  
He glanced over his shoulder at her, and continued to ritually make the tea.  
"Not much of my subject is particularly interesting, I'm afraid. Well, I think it is, but other people tend to tell me it's not."  
She grinned cheekily. "It's ok, your accent makes up for it."  
"Thanks!" he laughed incredulously. "No, but anyway, the most entertaining part of my lecture is the students. There's one kid, Remy LeBeau, who has come into every single one with various cats. And it's not like they're kittens who need constant attention, or anything like that, they're just fully grown, grumpy, sleek, self-obsessed cats, that he just draped over his shoulder and strokes while he makes notes on... I don't know, genetic things. He's Cajun as well, and I swear to God he puts on the accent extra strong just to piss me off- Ooh, tea's ready."  
He moved the equipment smoothly to the table and sat down, pouring it into the mugs. Raven followed him on automatic.  
"And another one, Pietro, is probably the most hyper person I've ever met. He's ADHD, which of course the poor chap can't help, but the real problem is that he augments it with caffeine. Constant Red Bull and flasks full of coffee, not even kidding. He's got this fantastic sense of fashion too; been dying his hair silver since he was eleven, apparently, and he likes to wear these steampunk-esque goggles on his head, usually in addition to this silver jacket and a band t-shirt. Great guy to hang out with, and I'd know, but god-awful to try and teach. There you go."  
He handed her the tea and she obliging wrapped her hands around it, allowing herself to forget for a moment that she couldn't drink and blowing gently on it.  
"You'd like his sister, I think."  
She raised an eyebrow confused, and he took a brave gulp of the scalding tea before explaining with a pained grimace.  
"Pietro's sister. They share a flat. She's called Wanda - they're, um, Ukrainian? I think? It might be Polish - and she's got much stronger accent than him, and she's very pretty and very artsy. She's doing a degree in experimental music, and another one in sculpture. Only thing is, she keeps making out with this person called 'Danger' in public - ridiculous name, really, and I've got absolutely no idea what gender they are, although I'm sure that's deliberate and of course there's absolutely nothing wrong with it - and yelling at people who very politely ask them to stop it. Bit temperamental."  
"That sounds fun." agreed Raven, laughing. "Actually, that sounds like Alex."  
"Ah, yes. Mr. Summers."  
"Yeah. I think Emma started fucking with his head yesterday, and he's mid-tantrum." She sighed. "He died at the same age as me, but it's only been four years. He's twenty-one. I'm thirty three."  
Charles nodded. "I understand."  
"No, I just mean, I wanted to do something! Be something, you know? Erik pretends like he knows about it, but he actually was someone. Emphasis on the 'was', because it all came down around his shoulders and he decided he wanted to die, so he did." She shrugged. "Thing is, he can't really die. None of us can. We are, technically, deceased, but not... I don't know, 'moved on'."  
"What do you mean?" asked Charles, intently nosy. "Came down around his shoulders?"  
"He had a wife," replied Raven, eagerly warming to the gossip. "And a kid too, Anya- I think she was about four, I wouldn't know, it was-"  
"1973, I know."  
"Yeah, only Sean, Azazel and Shaw were here yet. Anyway, they'd moved in and they were here for about two weeks, maybe three, and she just announced that she was leaving, out of the blue. Erik was an engineer, he was perfectly financially stable, and she just decided she didn't like him anymore and disappeared. Took Anya with her, and that's not even the worse bit."  
"Go on." encouraged Charles, leaning over the tea so they were closer, ignoring the terrifyingly conspicuous bullet hole between her eyes.  
"The worse bit," Raven confided, revelling in Erik's past pain. "Is that she was pregnant again, with another little girl, and she still left him."  
"His kid?"  
"Yes."  
"Christ."  
Raven sighed, brushing her blonde curls away from her forehead. To Charles's view, they were liberally streaked with blood on one side. "I think he was HAPPY. It's so weird to think about Erik as happy. I mean, that sounds so cruel, but he's just not. He can be amused, sarcastic, attractive or grumpy. There's no room in my world for an Erik that can be happy."  
"Excuse me," interrupted a familiar Germanic voice, lit with heavy tones of amusement and sarcasm. "I am incredibly happy."  
She made a little gasping noise and flickered so suddenly that her mug shook and sent mini waves of tea splashing everywhere.  
Charles, caught between Erik's 'I'll get you later, Raven' stare and Raven's 'Ohshitohshitohshitohshit' expression, stood up.  
"Oh, calm down." drawled Erik dryly. "I'm not about to stab anybody."  
He disappeared and appeared again, on a randomly materialising chair at the side of the table, between them.  
"But, in fairness, that's only because you-" He pointed at Raven. "Can't die again, and the last thing we need is another ghost."  
"I think this place is cursed." agreed Raven bluntly, raising the tea to her mouth to breathe in the steam. "Because everyone since Shaw has stayed; that can't be normal. This house has got to be, I don't know, from the 1800s or something. I bet someone else died in here before him, Shaw's only from the twenties."  
"We've had this discussion before," said Erik, in a low warning tone. "We don't know anything. Never will. Hank tried to work it out, and Azazel killed him. He'll kill you too, Charles- any of the Suicides would."  
" 'Stay out of the East Wing'." murmured Charles in agreement.  
Erik pointed an approving finger at him. "That is good advice. Darwin made that mistake, and look where it got him."  
"In a quasi-relationship with a pyromaniac and spending ninety percent of his time with a stoner from the sixties and a reporter with obsessive compulsive disorder?" asked Raven brightly.  
"Exactly." agreed Erik. "But, Charles, it could be even worse. You could be Janos."  
"Yeah, you could be in a quasi-relationship with a psychotic Russian maniac and spending ninety percent of your time with a narcissistic, manipulative bitch."  
"And a poltergeist."  
"Oh, yeah, and our closet skeleton."  
"The dark family secret."  
"Our own black sheep-"  
"You're supposed to say 'green sheep' now, you know."  
"Why?"  
"Not really sure."  
"What on earth are you on about?" interrupted Charles, bemused.  
They glanced at each other and spoke together. "Sebastian Shaw."  
"Oh. He's the troublemaker, then?"  
Raven snorted into her mug and Erik rolled his eyes.  
"Gott in Himmel. When we called him a 'poltergeist', we weren't joking. 'Stay out of the East Wing', or he'll kill you."  
"There was a man with a sword-"  
"Yeah, that's Azazel. He's nothing compared to Shaw." interrupted Raven.  
Erik nodded, but before he had a chance to agree further, Darwin and Hank appeared in the doorway.  
"Hey, you guys," Darwin said anxiously, ignoring the way that Charles stared openly at Hank's injuries. "I'm getting worried about Alex. He's acting a little... weird."  
Erik and Raven exchanged a look, and then all four of them were gone and Charles was alone with the slight rattle of a dropped teacup.

Moira was thumbing through his books when he arrived back upstairs, - still holding a half full mug of tea - while Sean reclined lazily on his desk chair and watched through half-lidded eyes. His bookshelves and chair were, naturally, the first things he'd unpacked. Everything else was still in boxes.  
He took another swallow before walking inside, glancing mildly at the pair of them. Like the others, it was all too obvious that they were... well, deceased, but Sean and Moira were just kind of pale and dead-eyed. Not bloody, or with literal bones and guts protruding from their skin.  
"Hello." he said quietly, and Moira startled, glancing over her shoulder at him.  
"Oh! Oh, it's just you. You can see us?"  
"Right now," he replied, somewhat hesitant to give away his ability to see them all the time. "Yep."  
She smiled welcomingly, putting out a hand, which he shook.  
"I'm Moira, Moira MacTaggert." She laughed in embarrassment ."Actually, we were going to try and scare you off."  
"It's ok, you're not very scary." he replied friendlily. "I'm Charles Xavier, although I suppose everyone already knows. Nice to meet you."  
"Nice to meet you too! I've- Sean, don't-"  
Charles jumped as he was met from behind by a terrific bear hug, and for a moment all he registered was a slightly scratchy terrycloth bathrobe, dark blue striped with white, and the feel of a ghost's head folded between the hollow of his shoulder and his neck. It wasn't warm - they never were - but it wasn't cold either. It was just a sort of weight .  
"I loooove you," murmured Sean foggily, and Moira rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips.  
"Sean." she barked, sharp and clear. "Off."  
There was a sharp intake of breath, and the hug broke off suddenly, Charles turning around to follow it. Sean, all blue lips and icy skin and flaming hair, stared at him apologetically with huge puppy-eyes.  
"I'm sorry, man," he said, still sort of hazy but clearly about a million times more lucid, and put his hands up, one going instinctively to his red curls. "I was tripping when I died. S'not having a good effect on my behaviour."  
"Quite alright. It's not like you can help it."  
"Felt like the world was ending, you know?" continued the kid, waving his arms about wildly for punctuation. "Like... whoa. And then it - BAM! It did!"  
Charles cocked his head curiously. "Do you remember dying?"  
"Nope." He popped the 'p', then collapsed backwards into Charles's wheelie chair, spinning away and crashing happily into the wall. "I just closed my eyes for a few moments, 'cos all the dancing lights were getting a bit much, and then when I opened them again everything was different and I was dead. Corpse looked kinda groovy, at first, but then it, well, did what dead things do and, um..."  
He looked down at his feet in embarrassment, and Moira walked STRAIGHT THROUGH Charles to go and rub his hair comfortingly.  
"It's not your fault."  
"Yeah, it is." He moaned  
"Excuse me," continued Charles, still a little out of breath from the sensation of a ghost passing through him. "What?"  
"I saw the body and had a heart attack". explained Moira quickly, and then hugged Sean, who still looked miserable. "It's alright, though. Otherwise, how would we ever have met? I was born more twenty years after you died."  
Sean smiled sadly, and leaned on her. "Yeah, I guess."  
She patted the top of his head and moved back towards Charles.  
"We were just going through your books, they seem fascinating."  
Charles laughed. "I doubt it. Just genetics."  
Moira raised an eyebrow. "Really? You've got quite a section on the supernatural."  
"Well, yes," he admitted, somewhat nervously. "It's hard to tell what's accurate though. About half of that's just science fiction."  
"I was a reporter," she explained, turning to glance at them again. "And I was here to write about whether or not the house was haunted. Bit ironic, really, but can't be helped. Anyway, most of those look pretty correct. Apart from the exorcisms."  
"They don't work?"  
"No, they really don't! Ghosts are around until what's holding them is demolished, as far as we can tell. And what's holding us is the house."  
Charles blinked in surprise. "Gosh. That's disheartening."  
"What?" asked Moira, frowning.  
"Well, I've met people like you before," he continued, smoothing out the papers that Sean had messed up and edging behind his desk. "Spirits. I always assumed that eventually they'd just fade away, when the emotions stopped being strong enough." He pulled a face. "Gosh, how many poor souls must there be trapped in hospitals and such?"  
"Maybe not everyone stays," suggested Moira.  
"Yeah," interrupted Sean gleefully, pulling his legs underneath him so he was cross-legged on the chair. "Like, it's only if you die violently or suddenly or you've got unfinished bees-ness!"  
Charles grimaced at Sean's returning lack of common sense. "Not likely, I'm afraid. Half of the people here committed suicide, remember?"  
Sean looked a little put out and changed positions again, so that he was lying with his legs over one armrest and his head was flopped limply over the other.  
"And, really, the circumstances of most of the deaths weren't exceptional. No offence, obviously."  
"None taken." replied Moira, with a little smile.  
"I'll take a little," murmured Sean. "But, I dunno, not too much, 'cos you're so pretty."  
Charles hesitated, and then laughed, and Moira sent a dry look at the sprawled out teenager.  
"Yeah, I'd take that as a compliment. Sean is the kind of pan that only the sixties and an oppressively religious childhood can bring about."  
Charles glanced at Sean for confirmation, and received a clumsy peace sign in return.  
"...fair enough."  
Sean put his tongue out and smiled, and was suddenly gone, as though he'd never existed. When Charles turned around, Moira was too.

Unfortunately, Charles then made the decision to go to the bathroom. Emma had, good for him, decided to go hang out in the East Wing with Shaw, and Raven (and Erik) had joined the Cheer Up Alex Summers Before He Burns The House Down mission out of boredom, so the only girl in there was Angel, perched moodily on the edge of the bathtub. Had she looked in the mirror, she would have seen carefully straightened hair, glittering green makeup and jewellery, and a pretty, tight, dark green dress.  
Charles, of course, saw her as she really was, all wet untidy strands and smeared kohl and dripping, deathly demeanour.  
"Sorry," he said, quickly turning on his ankle to exit and find somewhere else. "Didn't realise you were in here."  
"It's ok," sighed Angel, standing upright and stalking past him out the door. "Just thinking. It's not like I was actually using anything."  
"I'm Charles." he called limply, as she walked away, and she glanced coldly over her shoulder.  
"Angel Salvadore."  
He tried to smile friendlily, but she just smirked, amused, and gave a little snort.  
"You don't want to believe everything Darwin tells you, baby. Just because I didn't kill myself, doesn't mean I'm good, or that I want to be your friend."  
She rematerialised in front of him, so they were almost touching. She was slightly smaller than him, even with the killer heels she was wearing and Charles's own diminutive height.  
"And just because Janos hasn't killed anyone yet, doesn't mean he won't."  
Charles's eyebrows shot up, and then came sharply down. "What?"  
She stared honestly, almost vulnerably, into his eyes.  
"A warning, Charles. It's a warning."  
And, with that, she disappeared, leaving a cold feeling in the air that made Charles shiver.

Feeling despondent, worried and a little abandoned - all thought of actually continuing his thesis, which was what he had planned to do that day, completely forgotten - he wandered towards the basement, and was met with a suddenly appearing Darwin and Hank.  
"Whoa!" yelled Darwin, apparently unbothered by the sounds of crashing and violence past the door that they were guarding.  
"You do not want to go in there." agreed Hank anxiously. "He's been smashing stuff for about twenty two hours straight."  
"Really?" asked Charles, impressed. "Hasn't he run out of things to smash yet?"  
Darwin laughed, and Hank explained. "He smashed or burnt or exploded everything about a year ago. It's all been metaphysical since then."  
"Well," smiled Charles. "In that case, he won't hurt me. I'm real."  
He tried to move forwards, and they caught his arms and shoved him back.  
"No, he'll just kill you." responded Darwin levelly. "Not on purpose, but he will."  
"And Erik says if there's another ghost and it's my fault he'll kill me again." nodded Hank anxiously.  
Raven walked through the door, looking annoyed and overwhelmed, and Hank disappeared suddenly.  
"Scared of girls." murmured Darwin to Charles.  
"Well, he's not calming down. Don't think there's any reason for it." huffed Raven, and then smiled sweetly at the one living member of the house. "Hey, Charles. Had any lunch?"  
"Sandwich." he replied, putting a hand out, which she fist-bumped. "That's Mr. Summers in there, right?"  
"Yeah. We think Emma Frost - stone-cold queen bitch, she killed Angel - was pissing him off pretty bad."  
"Ah. Not much of a chance to meet him, then?"  
"Nope."  
With a BANG, the door to the basement buckled and visible flame licked around the edges, and all the ghosts and Charles leapt back.  
"Alex!" yelled Darwin, waving absently to the others with one hand, and charged through the door. "Calm the hell down!"  
Erik, a little dishevelled and, to the view of the dead, smoking gently, emerged with casual steps through the thick basement wall.  
"Well," he said grimly, straightening his collar. "That went badly."  
Raven beamed and hooked arms with both him and Charles. "More tea?" she asked hopefully. "WiFi? TV?"  
"Certainly." nodded Charles, while Erik attempted to unhook himself indignantly from Raven's grip. Eventually, he sighed.  
"Fine, liebling. Whatever mindless social blather you wish to subject me to."

Raven, hearing about the 'warning' that Angel had given Charles, eventually wandered off to try and find her, leaving Erik and Charles on the couch, watching 'Flash Gordon', which made Charles snort at the oldness of it and made Erik roll his eyes at the frivolity of it.  
"This is ridiculous." he grumbled eventually, and Charles shot him a glance.  
"Want a beer?" asked the smaller man, standing up and brushing imaginary dirt of his lap. "I know you can't really drink it, but..."  
"Yeah, sure. Why not?"  
Charles threw it from the fridge across the room, and Erik caught it effortlessly, without even looking, making Charles pull a face of extreme impressed-ness.  
"How long are you going to stay?" asked Erik quietly, once he sat down again.  
"Hmm?"  
"I mean it. We're- it's dangerous here."  
Charles sighed. "I don't know, another couple of days? I haven't even unpacked; I guess maybe I knew I'd have to go back."  
"Back where?"  
"A flat, upstate New York. No ghosts, apart from a harmless old man upstairs who died in his sleep and haunts one of the washing machines."  
"Talk to him much?" asked Erik, bemused, and Charles shook his head.  
"He's rather boring, to be honest. Anyway, I've invited a student of mine over tomorrow. I've got to do work at some point."  
Erik looked at him in alarm. "You're bringing a kid HERE?"  
"I can keep him away from the girls and Alex and the East Wing, I'm sure. He'll only be here a couple of minutes."  
"It's a bad idea". continued Erik, shaking his head.  
Charles only shrugged, tired, and rested his head on Erik's shoulder. "Maybe. Never mind."  
"You're going to regret that."  
"Maybe."  
Charles's eyes had closed and he was just mumbling into the material of Erik's shirt now.  
"Am I going to have to carry you upstairs?" frowned Erik, and Charles only shrugged and put his arms out, and Erik rolled his eyes as he discarded the unopened beer.  
"No."  
"Please?"  
"...alright, fine."  
Like the others, being dead had made him strong, and so Erik was easily able to lift Charles like a child and pull him into his room, throwing him down with deceptive tenderness on the bed.  
"Mm," mumbled Charles sleepily, just as Erik had settled to lean on his usual corner of the room and go into a trance for the night. "'Rik?"  
"What?"  
"Goodnight kiss?"  
For a moment Erik was frozen, and then he chuckled and crouched down so he was at Charles's eye level, pressing their lips together.  
It lasted longer than he had meant it to, and Charles easily deepened it, and when they opened their eyes both were sure that the kiss must have lasted minutes, if not hours.  
"Let's just pretend this never happened." whispered Erik, and Charles pouted a little.  
"Really? Seventies-ish homophobia?"  
"No! It's just... You're leaving in a few days."  
"I could stay?"  
Erik stood up. "No, you have to go."  
Charles slipped into unconsciousness, and some of the hurt that Erik was feeling broke through to his face.  
"You have to go, or you'll get hurt."

*

Alex had eventually calmed down, at something like eleven o'clock at night, and collapsed into Darwin's arms.  
"She was talking shit," he mumbled, exhausted, as the smaller man lowered them to sit on the basement floor. "Y'know. About us. I just got mad and I couldn't calm down."  
"I know." reassured Darwin. "I get that. It's the afterlife, I think. It fucked us up pretty bad. Emotions, feeling, memories... They're all hyped."  
"That explains the Suicides." agreed Alex.  
"Yeah, they were all angry at life and- BAM! The Violent Dead."  
And before it they really noticed, they had been lying there for hours and it was morning, and the doorbell rang long and loud like someone was leaning on it. And then, when no one answered it, a moment later, it rang again in short, sharp bursts.  
"Jesus, man, calm down." huffed Darwin, but Alex stood up.  
"I'll go see who it is."  
"Ok- Alex, wait,"  
He turned to see Darwin leaping up, and the darker man captured his face for a moment to kiss.  
"Be careful, yeah?"  
"Ok." said Alex, with a small smile. It was the first one Darwin had seen on a long time, and he beamed.

When Alex arrived upstairs, the annoying mystery visitor had given up on the doorbell and moved onto knocking, with both hands, in obnoxious rhythms, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.  
"Hey. Hey. Charles. Prof. Professor Xavier. Charles."  
The young man, who had long silver hair and who was wearing a leather jacket, bit his lip and stood back from the door, glancing up at the windows.  
Alex, more curious than anything, willed the door to be unlocked, and kept staring at the newcomer.  
"Charles!" yelled the kid - unluckily, in completely the opposite direction to Charles (and Erik)'s room - and groaned, ringing the bell again. And then it occurred to him to try the door, and he grinned when it swung open.  
"Hey, neat."  
Alex stood out of the way with his hands in his pockets and watched as the kid's eyes swept harmlessly over him without seeing anything, and then failed to notice as Raven wandered down the upstairs corridor.  
"Who's this guy?" she called down to Alex, catching sight of the hyperactive young dude and frowning. Alex shrugged.  
"Dunno, he's looking for Charles."  
"Professor X!" shouted the kid again, and, finally, Charles emerged from his room, squinting against the light and dressed in yesterday's rumpled shirt and slacks.  
"What the- Pietro. What on earth are you doing?!"  
"You said come to see you, some time in the morning, so here I am. Hey, I'm not too early, am I?"  
Charles glanced at the clock - 8:25, not an hour that any sane person would turn up for help from a sleepy professor that still lived like a student - and slumped in defeat.  
"Well- no, it's fine."  
"Cool, I've got this problem with the the, um, mit- mito- mitothingy and DNA, 'cos I tried to ask Remy and I phrased it kinda badly and he thought I was asking where babies come from."  
Pietro had come speeding up the stairs as he talked, pulling a few sheets of paper from his bag.  
Charles just blinked and rubbed his forehead and went, "What?".  
"You know, the mito-thingy-"  
"Mitosis?"  
"In the whatsitcalled-"  
"Uterus?"  
"Yeah, that's the one."  
"...alright, I've got my study half set-up, it's up here."  
Silently praying that there were no ghosts hanging around that area, Charles showed Pietro to his office.

Where Sean had, apparently, not really moved since yesterday and was still messing around hazily on his chair, while Raven sat on his desk and tapped her heels against the wood in time to Sean's muffled humming of 'Always Look On the Bright Side of Death', which was oddly appropriate.  
To Pietro, of course, it just looked like a chair spinning in circles on its own.  
"Oh, hi!" chirped Raven, smiling at Charles. "Moira wanted a bit of a break, so I said I'd keep an eye on Sean. Who's that?"  
Pietro, glancing over Charles's shoulder, frowned curiously.  
"Is your chair supposed to do that?"  
"It's broken. If you wouldn't mind just waiting out here for a moment," continued Charles, pulling the door closed and sending Pietro a warning look to stop him from opening it. "I'll go fetch what you need from my bedroom."  
"Ok, prof."  
"Don't break anything."  
"I'll try."  
Charles hurried frantically back towards his room and, on the way, crashed into a rather tall and sardonic man, who had made himself corporeal specifically so that Charles would do so.  
"Erik! Erik, could you please make sure that my student doesn't actually manage to smash the entire place? Please?"  
Erik raised an eyebrow. "Is that likely?"  
"Honestly, yes."  
Charles hurried on, leaving Erik to exhale in exasperation and go marching off to find the young man practically tapping a hole in the wall.  
"Can't you stand still?" he asked dryly, crossing his arms, and leaned against the opposite wall.  
"Bored bored bored bored bored bored-" stated Pietro, and clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth compulsively. Erik's eyes narrowed in annoyance.  
And then a kind of a shattering sound came from the down in the direction that Charles had disappeared in, and the kid and Erik both jumped in unison. Pietro glanced anxiously around, and then set off jogging towards it.  
Erik, after only a moment's hesitation, followed him, finding that even with his being dead and the young man not even going at anywhere near full speed he was exhausted.  
"Fuck, slow down, will you?" he grumbled, well aware that Pietro couldn't hear him, and halted moodily in place when the boy ran straight past his (and now Charles's) room. He would have been more than content just to look quickly in on Charles, which he did, to check that the ridiculous man was ok, which he was, and nothing had collapsed, which it hadn't (so what was that noise?), had he not suddenly realised that Pietro was heading straight for the East Wing.  
"No, no, nein, non, don't go in there," he muttered frantically, dematerialising and rematerialising at the entrance, where he could feel Shaw's terrifying plastic grin somewhere deep in the shadows and, even more alarmingly, see Azazel perched on the aforementioned upended bookshelf sharpening his swords and Emma leaning against a boarded-up window, ice cold grin matching her emotionless eyes.  
As Pietro darted into various decrepit and unusable rooms, checking for Charles, Erik grew increasingly worried and desperate. If that kid went into the East Wing, he WOULD die. No question about it; he was at risk enough here, in view of the family poltergeist and his disciples.  
He raised a hand and all the nails in the bookcase began to vibrate, but Pietro was too distracted and hyperactive to notice and he just bounded past it and put a single toe across the border - that, naturally, he couldn't see - to the East Wing, and then, hesitating, shuddered and pulled it back. As Erik relaxed in relief, Pietro grimaced and peered with a kind of idiotic curiosity into the darkness. "Creepy, man," he breathed, which Erik personally thought was the most sensible thing the boy had ever said.  
Obviously reluctant to do so, but seeing no other choice, the young man took a few steps backwards, past Erik, and began to turn on his heel to go-  
But Janos, horrifically silent and half-forgotten as always, was standing there, all elegant grey suit and windswept dark hair and cruel sneer and manic eyes - how had Erik not noticed them before?! How could those bloody insane eyes have escaped anyone's notice?! - and he twisted his hands sharply and sent two twin gusts of wind hurtling down the corridor, straight into Pietro. The boy cried out as all the air left his body at the force of the impact, and was suddenly being thrown through the air, across the invisible border, and into the shadows.  
Janos laughed noiselessly, and ran forward to join Azazel as the older man chased after Pietro, while Emma balled her fists and glared daringly at a helpless Erik who (even if he had been able to to fight Emma, which he doubted) was simply frozen in place with shock and unable to do anything.  
Pietro, meanwhile, collided with a stack of boxes, full of what had once been the possessions of people long gone, and had just barely enough time to curl in protectively on himself before they all fell, showering him with painfully heavy objects. For a moment he couldn't move, too busy trying not to pass out or scream, but the survival instinct telling him that he had to get out of that place RIGHT NOW, never mind any bruises or cuts or broken bones, was strong enough that he eventually uncurled and began to try and pull himself to his feet, trembling.  
Only for a terrifying, insane face to appear above him, along with the sensation of clawed hands reaching out to him, and he felt his muscles seize up in fear and fell to the floor. He couldn't see it, but a heavy boot connected with his nose and he could certainly feel it, and he screamed. And then there were fists and feet, punching and kicking at his gut and his back and, when he had screamed himself raw, Azazel's cold knife forced between his ribs.

Erik was huddled against the wall, hands over his ears as he tried not to listen to the sound of the boy dying, but knowing that once he was dead someone would have to get him out of there. Emma just checked her nails, like she didn't care, and smirked.

Charles, finding the book he had been looking for with a triumphant yell, twisted around and saw Angel standing in his doorway, eyes flickering distractedly towards the East Wing. "I warned you," she said, voice almost desperate and sort of guilty.

Pietro woke up to a world of jagged silhouettes and no light, lying on the smooth floorboards where a carpet had once been, but was now ripped away, and he felt cold.... and yet, not cold. In fact, he didn't feel anything.  
Beginning to panic, he stumbled to his feet and glanced down at where he had been lying a moment ago, and gasped as he saw himself, bleeding and broken and dead.  
"No, no," he mumbled, falling backwards and into the wall, shaking his head and wrapping his arms around in his body in some form of comfort. "I- I can't be dead, I'm here, Wanda- I need to be alive- Wanda needs someone-"  
"Oh, you're definitely not alive." hissed a cruel, accented voice, and wirily strong arms wrapped around his chest, so he couldn't move.  
Janos sidled closer to Azazel and rested his head on the other spirit's shoulder, smiling with mock-sweetness.  
"Let me go," whimpered Pietro, struggling desperately.  
Someone, further into the shadows, only laughed.

Erik heard another yell and surged to his feet, staring incredulously at Emma. "He's already dead! What are they doing?"  
She glanced up in annoyance. "Just having a little fun, honey."  
"Tell them to leave him alone." growled Erik.  
"Uh, no. They're just scaring him a little."  
Pietro's next cry broke off into sobs and Erik literally snarled and dematerialised, aiming for wherever the kid was, and hoping fruitlessly to avoid Shaw.  
Angel, meanwhile, appeared nervously at the corner that Erik had followed Pietro around. Emma beamed coldly at her.  
"Darling, how nice to see you. It worked?"  
Angel nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears and stalking insidiously closer. "Is he dead?"  
"Of course."

When Erik appeared, the boy was surrounded and crumpled on the floor, his arms wrapped protectively around his head, with Shaw - one of his horrid guns in hand and pointed firmly at his victim - advancing towards him.  
"Don't touch him."shouted Erik, loud enough that Janos and Azazel jumped and looked at him, but Shaw only paused and let out a roar - so inhuman and unearthly that even the other ghosts didn't want anything to do with him - and continued, and so Erik had no choice but to barrel forwards, forcefully knocking Janos off his feet (and through a wall) and pushing Azazel out of the way to grab hold of the kid's arm and haul him to his feet and disappear, into the void, where they were alone and Shaw and the others or, in fact, anyone, couldn't get to them.

Eventually, in what could have been a second or a lifetime - it was impossible to tell - Erik landed them in the kitchen, clattering unsmoothly onto the chairs as Pietro tried to work out how to materialise. Moira was perched on the counter, sipping more of the tea which she created periodically, and she jumped up at the sight of them, freezing when Erik glared. "Who's this?" she asked tentatively, and Erik just ignored her and turned back to the wide-eyed and possibly traumatised student.  
"Get Charles." he barked.  
"But-"  
"Do it!"  
She startled and flickered uncertainly for a moment before disappearing, and Erik turned back to Pietro sympathetically. Emotions weren't his strong suit, maybe, but he knew how this felt.  
"You ok?" he asked softly.  
The boy hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "No- I mean, I'm not hurt, but I can't... FEEL. Anything, like, at all. Everything's weird and muted."  
"You're a ghost." stated Erik bluntly.  
"Oh shit. Yeah. Wow."  
"Deceased."  
"I- Jesus fucking Christ."  
"Shuffled of this mortal coil and joined the ranks of the departed." continued Erik blithely. "I would say 'pushing daisies', but your body's still upstairs. You still ok?"  
"No!"  
"Good." That was more like it. "Now, you'll probably be in a state of denial for a couple of years, I know Raven still is, but you- sorry, what's your name?"  
"Pietro Maximoff...?"  
"You, Pietro Maximoff, are very much dead."  
Pietro began to hyperventilate, putting his head in his hands, and Erik frowned.  
"Hold on. My ex-wife was called Maximoff. You aren't Polish, are you?"  
"Huh? Uh, yeah..."  
"Really?"  
"Hey, who even are you?" asked Pietro, glancing up at him.  
"My name is Erik. Born 1932, died in 1973. Lived in Germany until 1937, then moved to Poland, then... Well, it's a long, excessively tragic story, but I met a woman and we got married in the Ukraine and we went to live in America. Moved into this house when my daughter was ten, and then the bitch left me and I drunk myself to death."  
"...oh."  
"Yes. This is me being nice. It won't last long, so let's say you have three seconds to ask me any more questions."  
The kid waved his arms around vaguely. "Man, I'm just gonna freak out about the whole dead thing later, so what's your last name?"  
"Lehnsherr." replied Erik, completely straight-faced.  
"You're shitting me!" yelled the kid, standing up so suddenly that his chair flew across the room and crashed into a wall.  
Erik crossed his arms.  
"Number one: Being dead makes you strong. Number two: If that phrase means what I think it means, I'm not."  
"Dude! My mom's name was Anya Maximoff-Lehnsherr, does that mean anything to you?"  
Erik froze.

"Pietro, oh my god, I'm so sorry," babbled Charles, running frantically into the kitchen and hugging the kid.  
"Wait, people can see us? Touch us?" asked Pietro, confused, and Charles grimaced.  
"Only me, I'm afraid. That I've met, anyway."  
Pietro's face fell, but then he glanced behind Charles, and caught sight of the anxious Moira, Alex and Darwin, who were hovering at the door. Once they noticed their eyes on him, they quickly disappeared.  
"Hey, who are they?"  
"More ghosts." explained Erik dismissively, waving a casually disinterested hand, and Pietro's eyebrows shot up.  
"How many dead people are there in this place, man?"  
"Pietro-" cut Charles, hurrying forward to sit opposite him at the table, fingers steepled nervously. "What happened?"  
The kid ran his fingers through his long silver hair, and stared hopelessly into Charles's eyes. To the psychic's view - and Erik's, actually, as Pietro hadn't worked out how to manipulate his appearance yet - his nose was crushed out of shape and there was a deep gash not quite along his cheekbone, both injuries streaking blood down his face, and his t-shirt was bloodstained and ripped slightly from the knife wound that had finished him off.  
"I don't really know. I heard a noise, so I ran after it, in case you'd got hurt or something, 'cos y'know you said the ceiling collapsed while we were on the phone-"  
Charles winced, and Erik cut in. "That must have been Angel."  
"And then, well, I couldn't find you, so I walked towards that dark area, and it was like there was a mini-cyclone or something and I got pushed back in."  
"Janos." clarified Erik grimly.  
"And then they started attacking me." he finished weakly. "Kept going, once I was... like this, only I could see them then and Erik arrived and got me out."  
Charles had paled and was at a complete loss for words, putting his hand on Pietro's shoulder.  
At which point, Sean burst in through the door. His eyes were completely unfocused and his movements were clumsy, and he was shaking badly enough that Erik knew something was wrong, because the point at which Sean reverted back to what he had been like when he died was the point to be worried.  
"T-T-They're f-freaking out u-upstairs,"  
"Sean." barked Erik. "Breathe. Get yourself together, you stupid Süchtige."  
"It's like an earthquake." continued Sean, rocking backwards and forwards a bit now but considerably calmer, which was odd because Erik yelling at people didn't usually make them very calm. "Shaw's being really scary, so Raven and Hank buggered off."  
Pietro was looking between Charles and Erik so quickly that Charles was beginning to worry about him feet in whiplash. "Shaw? That's the one that-"  
"Yes." admitted Charles quickly, with a nod from Erik.  
"He's not gonna come after me, is he?" asked the terrified student.  
Erik hesitated, then shook his head. "No, you're already dead. Charles! Charles, you're still alive, you have to get out."  
"What?"  
"Sean, get the others, get Charles's stuff. Now!"  
The younger - older? - ghost jumped and obediently dematerialised to round up everyone else.  
"B-but," stammered Charles. "You can't just KICK ME OUT!"  
"Watch me." rejoined Erik viciously. "I can be just as bad as Janos or Azazel or Emma, and unless you want the wrath of twelve spirits falling on you, you HAVE TO GO."  
"No, Erik, I need to stay here, with Pietro, with you, for god's sake-"  
"LEAVE!" screamed Erik, standing up, and all the drawers slammed in and out and all the chairs and the table began to rattle. Anything left on the countertop bounced violently up and down.  
Charles, completely struck by this new dangerous side of his friend, took a step back, but stopped, tensing up resolutely.  
"Pietro... Are you alright?"  
The kid glanced uncertainly around. "...I don't know. I don't understand this, at all, but Erik- Erik is my grandad, we're pretty sure, and I can stay here. If I have to, I mean. I do have to, don't I? I can barely imagine leaving; it makes me feel ill."  
Charles nodded.  
"Just," finished Pietro softly. "Could you just tell Wanda something? I don't know what."  
The professor kept nodding, tears pricking in his eyes as there was a loud bang, and all his stuff clattered to the ground, pushed out of the upstairs window.  
"I can stay with my sister," he murmured, staring desperately at Erik, as though asking for a chance to stay. "O-Or an associate of mine, or my cousin Tony..."  
He turned on his heel and ran.

So, nothing really changed.  
The house fell silent again, and Sean stumbled around behind Moira as she made existential tea, and sometimes Alex and Darwin cuddled and sometimes they yelled at each other, and Raven was lonely for a few months, and then she forgot how evil Emma and Angel could be and started hanging out with them again, and Hank stayed as invisible as he could but sometimes got up the courage to talk to someone, and Janos and Azazel plotted and made chaos and kissed, and Shaw raged and broke things and caused trouble.  
And Erik gained an annoying, loudmouthed, lanky grandson, who seemed to be endeavouring to gain a position as his shadow.  
They had no links to the rest of the world.

Until Logan arrived. Like Charles, all he had seen were photos of the house online, and, like Charles, he arrived suddenly and in a hurry.  
It was Emma who spotted him first, moping unhappily near the bathroom window.  
He seemed about middle age, his dark hair moulded into two points above untidy stubble and sideburns, and dressed in plaid and jeans. When he got out of the van, he was smoking a cigar, and he was quickly followed by what seemed to be a small battalion of children.  
The oldest was maybe seventeen, wearing a green hoodie, with straight chestnut hair and one white streak in her bangs. "Jesus, Logan, how old is this place?" she drawled as she stared at it, her accent strong and southern.  
"I like it." said the next one quietly, a tweenish girl with long black hair, her shoulders hunched shyly and her hands stuffed in her pockets. "Seems kinda creepy."  
"Only you'd think that creepy was good." laughed the next girl around a mouthful of bubblegum, older but kind of tiny and Asian, with spiky hair and an obnoxiously yellow jacket.  
"Daken," asked their dad, turning around to stare bemusedly at a moodily skulking Japanese boy with a mohawk. "Any opinions?"  
The kid scowled and stuck his middle finger in the air.  
Inside, a frosty smile spread across Emma's face.  
Now, this was going to be FUN.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify:  
> Emma: Drowned herself  
> Janos: Fell backwards off a balcony  
> Azazel: Slit his throat with a sword  
> Shaw: Shot himself  
> Angel: Encouraged to drown herself by Emma  
> Erik: Drank himself to death  
> Alex: Died in the fire that blinded Scott  
> Raven: Mistakenly assassinated  
> Sean: Overdosed  
> Moira: Saw Sean's body, had a heart attack  
> Hank: Was swinging on the chandelier and Azazel cut it  
> Pietro: Beaten to death by the Suicides  
> Darwin: Shot by Shaw  
> Charles: ALIVE
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT 05.23.2016: This will not be a continued series. Sorry.


End file.
